Ephemeral
by pixie paramount
Summary: Kaede dreams in the what couldhavebeen and what didn't. So she dreams in what she thinks what is reality, but what is not. — Kaede centric. Oneshot.


**Ephemeral  
By:** pixie paramount (7/24/06)  
**  
Fandom:** Inuyasha  
onesided Kaede/Inuyasha, Kaede/Naraku & Kikyou's death and years after & warped characterization & the mind is a crevice of secrets.

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The first day after Kikyou's death the village is somber as they mourn.

The whole day is uneventful and Kaede bounces around from this-and-that; playing with the children who mock her missing eye and being reprimanded for that later ("You mustn't strain yourself!"), forced to curl beneath the thick blankets and stare at nothing but spiders.

Blowing her bangs from her eyes Kaede stares at her hands, intently with the cross of her brow, and bites down on her bottom lip.

She still sees the blood, Kikyou's and possibly hers, but can't tell how she feels about it.

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Kaede still recalls the moment she lost her eye **_---_**

Bloody with cuts and wincing at the bruises that spite her with their sting, she raises her arrow, fumbling (it had felt so new then), and . . .

He had cackled when she asked him why.

**_---_** like she recalls every single detail of how Kikyou died **_---_**

In her arms Kikyou felt heavy, draped over and on her and barely standing, she demands of her so much.

Burn me, she said. Burn me with the jewel.

And she had wanted to say no at that instant, Kikyou-one-sama . . .

She had fallen before she could say now.

**_---_** and of how great and tragic her older, beloved, sister was.

Remembering leaves her feeling hollow, Kaede decides; loosing the bow with a snap and the sharp thud that pierces the forest.

So she decides _not_ to remember, to aim to _forget_, but she can't when she is meters away from him, close enough to feel him, and her heart beating even while her heart still tries to sew back the pieces (that she suspects must have broken all over again).

Kaede notes to never cross _him_ again on her routes.

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She passes him everyday for what feels like years.

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_'The past really is better left forgotten_,' she thinks; back pressed against the trunk of a nameless tree, Kaede watches the children from time-to-time and smiles brightly like Kikyou never would, though her smiles are often marred with a frown when one of them predominantly insists on bringing up Fairy-tales.

They gather like moths and circle her, pocking and probing and whining and she wants to laugh and curl her fingers in their hair; she is a year older than Kikyou ever will be and her heart has stopped dropping in her chest when she thinks of her, but fairy-tales seem to be her undoing nowadays; she wants to bark at them and shoo them away _and be like_ Kikyou, but she can't because that is impossible no matter how long and carefully she watched her every breathwordmove.

She can't be Kikyou no matter how much they want her to be.

So, Kaede tells them of an idiot prince who could have gotten the best girl, but didn't because he was secretly evil.

She cackles like he does, tells herself to never cackle when they run home laughing and screaming of how evil and horrid a prince like that was.

"I won't be like that!" one boasts.

These are the moments when she hates Inuyasha for ruining her own imaginary fairy-tale that could-have-been but didn't, because he was selfish.

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On the anniversary of her death Kaede lights a candle for every year so she doesn't forget her.

She blows one out to forget him (and the feeling of betrayal).

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It is sixty-three days and a life-time bottled within that leads to Kaede thinking of _him_, of all things.

Kaede blames the burnt wounds, gauze, and the spiders crawling along the rafters **_---_** "Killitkillitkillit!" **_---_** for him slithering into her thoughts now-and-then with the guilt of leaving him there and, oddly, joyous that _he has to be dead_.

Has to.

So, one night, she checks and it still doesn't feel right.

All burned and caved-in and nothing left.

But it still tugs on her heart because she thinks she let her, Kikyou, down.

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Sometimes **_---_** _always_, Kaede blames Inuyasha for it all.

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She runs that day; she finds nothing of that past and trips on her way to him, questioning everything and just making sure (because there couldn't be another of that, because she is afraid of breaking like something fragile, something she hates very much) of his **_---_**

'He _has to be_,' Kaedea thinks, poking him with the end of her bow reassuringly.

**_---_** death.

It doesn't tug on her heart like Kikyou does; it hardens and dulls her heart and makes her raise her arrow at him to strike down his still, slowly, beating heart **_---_**

(She has checked a thousand times before, questioning why he is still alive.)

**_---_** that makes her chock on her screams.

He tugs on her heart like all broken-beats do: painfully.

Lowering her bow has never been so difficult than the days she raises it at him.

"I could kill you now, you know." She says it like he can hear her. "I could kill you now for what you have done . . . to her and me." She slips through her teeth; feeling new in this skin and looking more like her everyday doesn't help her rid of her of that day.

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A suitor who was, at one point, a vagabond comes crawling from nowhere and lurks beneath the temple where Kaede frequents.

He has a smile that slithers along his lips and makes her skin crawl, sipping sake and not leaving her for form, hidden beneath layers of unflattering red-white cloth, for whatever it was worth.

"Why are you here?" she demands in a moment in time she marks as hers; hands on her hips and trying not to admire the way he slinks to a stand with a grace that makes her want to throw the herbs she has collected at him **_---_** she _isn't Kikyou_ **_---_** and she bites her bottom lip nervously when he half-grins down at her; he has long limbs that look like spider legs and he isn't terribly handsome.

It's who he looks like that makes her heart flutter.

"For you." His answer is too simple for her liking.

Biting back her tongue she twirls on her heel and stalks off, never forgetting the color of his eyes **_---_**

Red, red eyes.

**_---_** or his face **_---_**

Inuyasha, her heart tells her, betraying her so easily.

**_---_** and she tells herself not to fall, not to make Kikyou's mistake.

Never.

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She is young and older than Kikyou by too many years, reckless and angry at her bastard heart for not letting go.

Kaede spends her nights glaring at the Goshinboku tree, inhaling its scent and the smell of the forest around her (the flowers recently blooming, still stuck in her hair from the moments in time that she played with the village children).

She stands clumsily, nearly tripping on every root that sinisterly reeks her path, presses herself to the back of the Goshinboku, backwards-parallel to him (she can still feel him), and it has been ages since she has cried for him, her, and herself _**---**_ for the dream, tale they all could have had and wanted. _Desperately_.

Her fingers dig too deeply and scratch too hard, beginning to bleed she bites down so hard on her lips until she feels spindle-fingers on her wrists, backing her away from damage and pressing the thin skin of her wrists to the thin skin that spans across her chest; she can feel her heart beat, can taste it as it leaps up her throat and taste it bitterly on her tongue. Telling her that everything would be alright if she could just leave, if she could gather up their hearts and dreams and memories and go running for the one thing she wanted most, to be normal, and make it come true.

But she didn't because . . . Because.

She _couldn't_.

He is grinning.

She is crying.

This isn't right.

He's happy fucking everything up, for having that little piece of Kikyou that he couldn't get his hands on ever if either of the were ever really alive.

And she's so deeply buried in her guilt and need for anything that she would do anything for a time when she could get whatever she wanted and believe that this is it and **_---_**

When he kisses her it isn't a kiss.

"Make. Me. Forget." She pants, forgetting.

**_---_** for the longest time, she lives. Doing the things Kikyou would never get the chance to; living something, everything, a contradictory way to the path that Kikyou chose **_---_** was _handed_ _**---**_ to do.

For the longest time since everything was torn apart Kaede is herself.

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tell me what is real  
so I may forget  
(for eternity)

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.**Author's Note:  
**(And thank you, The Fritz, for looking this over and all. _I love you._) 

Point blank: I hate this and I expect you to hate it too.

And, also, I've take numerous inspiration from other's and, uh, major liberties that may classify me as a looney since, you know, I detered from canon.

I apologize and wish I burn for this too; you might as well enjoy the show. (Oh. And check out the following: lynnxlady, raihu, numisma. Because they write like whoa and I demand you read them. Now.)

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**STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIED.**


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